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Michael Hegstrand (September 12, 1957 – October 19, 2003) was an American professional wrestler. Hegstrand was best known for his appearances as Road Warrior Hawk, one half of the tag team known as the Road Warriors, with Road Warrior Animal.
Career
Road WarriorsFor a more detailed profile on Animal’s time as a Road Warrior see: Road Warriors When Paul Ellering was looking to put together a stable of heels in Georgia Championship Wrestling called The Legion of Doom it was decided to put Mike with his good friend Joe Laurinaitis, change their names to Hawk and Animal respectively and thus the Road Warriors were born. To look more intimidating the two shaved their heads into Mohawks started wearing studded dog collars, spiked shoulder pads, and face paint. The look and name was taken from Mad Max 2 helping to paint the two as no-mercy monsters. Their interview style was vicious, yet charismatic and a bit humorous. The team was an instant hit, revolutionizing the tag-team scene with their power moves, no mercy attitudes and innovative face paint that would spawn many future imitators in wrestling. In Georgia they won the NWA National Tag Team Championship four times before moving on to bigger promotions such as the American Wrestling Association in the US and All Japan Pro Wrestling in Japan, winning tag-team titles wherever they went. NWA
In 1988 the Road Warriors engaged in a violent feud with The Powers of Pain (The Barbarian and The Warlord) the first team that could truly match the Road Warriors in power (and who were one of the most well known Road Warrior clones). The Powers of Pain even went so far as to injure Animal’s eye during a weightlifting competition. When Animal returned he initially wore a hockey goalie mask to protect his eye. The angle abruptly ended when the Powers of Pain left the NWA after finding out they were booked against the Road Warriors in a series of Scaffold Matches and they did not want to get hurt by falling off the scaffold. Near the end of 1988 the Road Warriors captured the NWA World Tag Team Championship from The Midnight Express whom they mauled in short order to win the titles. After being the “Uncrowned champions” for a long time the Road Warriors’ run with the tag-team titles was short lived, crooked referee Teddy Long used a fast count to cheat the Road Warriors out of their titles. In their last year with the NWA the Warriors feuded mainly with The Varsity Club, The Samoan Swat Team, and The Skyscrapers before leaving the NWA in the summer of 1990. WWFThe Road Warriors immediately signed with the World Wrestling Federation and were immediately pushed into a feud with the most famous of all “Road Warrior Clones”, Demolition (which once again included their old training partner Barry Darsow). Due to the ailing health of one of Demolition (Ax) he was replaced by Crush but the magic of the original Demolition was gone and the feud did not live up to the high hopes of the fans. Just over a year after signing with the WWF the Legion of Doom won the WWF World Tag Team Titles and held them for about 8 months. When they lost the titles they briefly left the WWF only to return with long time manager Paul Ellering by their side, as well as a wooden dummy called “Rocco”. Both members of the L.O.D. thought the gimmick was stupid, as did most of the fans and it led to Hawk quitting the WWF, splitting up the Legion of Doom for the first time in 9 years. When Animal suffered a severe back injury a short while later everyone thought it was the end of the legendary team. Image:HellRaisersIWGP.jpg the Hell Raisers (Hawk & Power Warrior) Hawk competed as a singles wrestler in Europe and Japan and although he won nearly every singles match he competed in, he was usually seen (by North American and Japanese fans at least) as a tag team wrestler. Thus, he always fought either mid-card opponents or made teams with better-known singles stars. When he joined New Japan Pro Wrestling he was immediately paired with Kensuke Sasaki, then simply known as a good mid-carder, as the Hell Raisers (Sasaki adopting the face paint and gimmick Power Warrior). The two dominated NJPW's tag team ranks for a while through their two wins of the IWGP World Tag Team Championship, but no North American promoter thought about bringing them as a team, due to Sasaki's affiliation with NJPW. As a singles wrestler, Hawk found success in Europe, winning the CWA World Heavyweight Championship. In 1993 Hawk made sporadic appearances in World Championship Wrestling as a mystery partner of Dustin Rhodes and later as a replacement partner when Davey Boy Smith left the federation but nothing permanent ever came of it. In 1995 he reappeared in WCW. He helped Sting in a feud against Meng and Kurasawa, but a proposed singles feud with Kurasawa fell through due to an arm injury (to let Hawk rest, it was kayfabed that Kurasawa broke Hawk's arm using a cross armbreaker). Hawk returned the following year, but this time, he also brought Animal back with him as his back had finally recovered enough for him to return to active competition. During that time, Sting and Lex Luger had won the WCW World Tag Team Championship and the Warriors challenged them, to no success. The rise of the nWo precluded further challenges, and they headed back to the WWF. After leaving WCW they returned to the WWF where the Legion of Doom took part in the ”Stone Cold” Steve Austin Vs the Hart Foundation feud siding with Austin against the Harts. The Legion of Doom also became 2 time tag-team champions on October 7, 1997 when they defeated The Godwinns. In November of 1997 the Legion of Doom faced the newly formed New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) and shockingly lost the titles to the upstart team. After several unsuccessful challenges the L.O.D. were repackaged as Legion of Doom 2000 with manager Sunny, although she did not stay with the team for long. Attitude ControversyIn 1998 the Legion of Doom became involved in their most controversial angle to date, playing off Hawk’s real life drug and alcohol problems. Hawk started to show up drunk or “Unable to perform” on TV (according to the storyline). As Hawk proved more and more erratic and unreliable, a 3rd L.O.D. member was introduced Puke to team with Animal while Hawk dealt with his personal issues. The storyline ended with accusations that “Puke” had been the "enabler" of Hawk's problems, exploiting them to to take Hawk’s place in the team. During this segment, Hawk infamously was shown to have fallen off the Titan Tron. It was a controversial segment that pushed the envelope of good taste and that was the hallmark of the WWF's "Attitude" era. Neither Hawk nor Animal approved of the WWF exploiting Hawk’s personal problems, essentially making light of them by turning it into a storyline and left the WWF. After the WWFWhile the Road Warriors never officially broke up, Animal started making an increasing number of solo appearances after they left the WWF as Hawk struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and generally did not appear at many wrestling shows during this time. In 2001 Hegstrand was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a heart condition that stopped him from wrestling for a short while. He was able to overcome its effects and returned to a regular working schedule later on. Animal as well as Hawk became born-again Christians in 2003 and appeared at a number of Christian wrestling events run by Ted DiBiase and Nikita Koloff hoping to reignite their tag-team career. They also appeared in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in late 2002, early 2003 as part of a group that opposed Vince Russo’s faction Sports Entertainment Xtreme but only wrestled one actual match for the federation. Animal and Hawk made a surprise appearance on RAW on May 12 2003 when they took on Kane & Rob Van Dam for the World Tag Team Championship. Although Hawk and Animal came up short in their attempt to become three-time champions, it was clear that Hawk had defeated the demons that had once kept him from competing, and the Road Warriors had hopes of returning to the WWF. DeathHegstrand died on October 19, 2003 in the early morning in his home in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida at the age of 46. His friends said that he and his wife Dale had recently bought a condominium near their current home and were packing their boxes the night before. Hegstrand said that he felt tired and went to take a nap. When his wife checked on him at about 1 A.M., he had died of an apparent heart attack. He had battles with alcohol and drugs throughout his career and was an admitted steroids user. At the time of his death, Hawk and Animal were working on a book entitled, Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaah O Whhhhhat a Ruuuuuush. After the book was completed, Animal dedicated the book to his late partner and childhood friend. In Wrestling
Championships and accomplishments
Personal lifeHawk once dated Missy Hyatt. He also once dated Eleanor Mondale, the daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale. See also
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